


this is an argument about goals

by electrumqueen



Series: all thinking is comparison [2]
Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Developing Relationship, M/M, Miscarriage, Mpreg, Relationship Negotiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-08 19:37:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6870718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electrumqueen/pseuds/electrumqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You know,” Robert says, idly, “you knocked me up last April.”<br/>Aaron bolts upright. “What?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is an argument about goals

**Author's Note:**

> contains: some body horror, discussions of abortion, v v brief ideation of infant murder; mentions of aaron's childhood sexual abuse and self-harm. canonical robert/chrissie and attendant infidelity issues; mentions of cain/moira, chrissie/andy; v brief andy/robert. extensive discussion of miscarriage in an a/b/o context (and attendant fudging of biology), attendant a/b/o consent issues (re: heat, pregnancy, hormones) and some kinda gross/iddy biological determinism (re: biological compulsion to keep an otherwise not especially wanted pregnancy). please don't hesitate to let me know if you feel this could use further tags or warnings!
> 
> this is set around the third week of april 2016, just after the trial concludes, during the ten-day stretch when robert and aaron weren't on-screen. (i don't think this is what was happening, though. even if a/b/o does Very Significantly help to make emmerdale make sense.)
> 
> thanks to j for the readover and figuring out grammar with me!! also letting me AGGRESSIVELY FEEL THINGS and then write the trickiest bits in chat!!!!! ur the b e s t. <3 <3 <3

 

Charity Dingle smells like cinnamon and vodka. Her hair falls over her shoulder as she pulls two pints, fast. “I never took you two for traditional,” she says.

“What?” Robert squints at her.

She raises one very dark eyebrow. “Are you messing around with Aaron? Because if you are-” It’s a Dingle sort of pause, the kind that comes with larceny and petty misdemeanours. Charity Dingle has never been anything close to a traditional omega.

“I’m not,” Robert says, immediate. He is trying not to be stung but it still hurts; he still wants to say, _look at what I’ve done for him, look he trusts me now, look I made it better._ “What’s brought this on? Chas is fine with it, you know. Everyone’s fine. Paddy’s - Paddy, but even he can see that I’m good for Aaron.”

Charity rolls her eyes. "You walked in half a pace behind him," she says. "You counted, I saw it." And then she shrugs. "You're not like that. Or I didn't think you were."

"Well -" he swallows. "I am. I'm like that with him. It's not - I wasn't half a pace behind."

“Yeah, you were.” Her voice is calm, easy.

"D'you give every omega in a relationship this routine? Didn't take you for Omega Lib, Charity."

"That lad's been through enough," she says, sharply. "And he's not - he's not exactly traditional, either."

Robert goes to take his pints but she holds them still, looking right at him.

"Are you actually happy like this? Because you know-"

"Ask everyone this, do you?”

"Asked our Cain," she says. "He said yeah. He said he was. Look at him now. Is that what you wanna be?"

"He's happy," Robert says, thinking about the way Cain Dingle used to terrify him. Now Cain is with Moira, who is the steadiest alpha in the village. She doesn't need to keep a hand on his collar; you can hear it in her voice, you can see it in the way he looks at her. Like she put the stars in the sky, like everything she says is God’s own truth.

Robert never thought he'd see Cain in a collar. When he was young, when Dad was breathing down his neck about what he ought to be, it had been comforting, a little. Even if Cain was an arsehole who ruined lives and pushed Robert around all the time, you couldn't call him soft.

(Dad had said: _pity someone didn't put a collar on them. Cain and Charity both._ Then he made a joke about Dingles, and omegas running wild.

But it was reassuring, Cain Dingle in charge entirely of his own life without the world falling down round his ears.)

In retrospect, this explains a lot about how Robert spent his teenage years.

"Cain's on a leash," Charity says, all cool disdain. She shrugs. "If that's what you're comfortable with, I won't stop you."

"I realize it's a lot to ask from your family," Robert says, "but I'd appreciate it if you kept your nose out."

She relinquishes the pints, finally and reluctantly. “Well,” she says. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is,” Robert says, taking the glasses. “Bye now.”

 

-

 

Liv’s an alpha, alpha to her bones, to the ends of her long blonde hair. Aaron’s good with her, as much as you can be good with a fourteen year old hopped up on alpha arrogance; she listens to him, and she loves him, and when he needs to he can put the sort of steel in his voice to which she’ll respond.

He doesn’t do it much. He doesn’t think he needs to. He wants to be her best friend.

 

Robert doesn’t want to interfere. It’s not his job to interfere, and he’s an omega, and he’s _Aaron’s_ omega, even if they haven’t spelled it out yet. He’s Aaron’s omega and he’s not Aaron’s co-parent and Liv is an _alpha_ and he knows about teenage alphas. Teenage alphas, who make him think of Andy and Dad and _do as you’re told, Rob,_ prickling up and down his spine.

Making him think of that goddamn barn, and Andy with that low shiver in his goddamn voice.

Robert keeps his distance. He's Aaron's. Aaron's not Chrissie but alphas work the same way, don't they?

It’s Robert’s job to make things easier. Not to cause trouble.

 

Liv tries to push Robert around; he’s an omega, and she is not. She needles at him, because she’s young, and arrogant, and she wants Aaron in the way of young alphas; and Aaron loves him. Objectively, Robert understands all of these things, and objectively, Robert understands that he is the adult in this situation, and objectively, Robert understands that he is safe.

Objectively, when Robert thinks about this, it is stupid. Robert is an adult, and Aaron has _chosen_ Robert, multiple times over, through terrible choice after terrible choice.

 

Robert is very bad at being objective when he feels backed into a corner. He is trying to be better. He wants to be better.

 

But he can’t be anything but omega around Aaron, not when Aaron is like this.

He _can_ , however, be significantly less omega around Liv. It’s just: he thinks about Andy, and he thinks about Dad.

Liv’s not his responsibility. He can’t overstep - Chrissie would have killed him. Even if Aaron’s not like that, it’s just better to stay well out.

 

-

 

Robert is towelling off his hair; he pushes through the door of Aaron’s little bedroom and looks at him, like he gets to do now. Aaron, sitting on the edge of the bed in a black t-shirt and worn pants, with his hands folded in his lap. He looks up at Robert, a little smile playing around the edge of his mouth. The collar of his t-shirt is threadbare and when Robert squints he can see the shape of his own teeth-marks.

It’s strange, because now Robert’s throat is bare, but he’s never felt anything so heavy as the weight of Aaron’s gaze. Mostly he doesn’t mind it. There are some days he wants to run, but that’s normal, right? And they’re only new. He’ll get used to it.

He shuts the door behind him, waiting.

 

“I’m sorry about Liv,” Aaron says. “I know she’s - difficult.”

“She’s an alpha,” Robert says, raising one shoulder and then dropping it. “That’s how alphas are.”

“Robert,” says Aaron, and there’s a softness in his voice that sounds like pity. “Robert, that’s not-”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” Robert says, quietly. “It’s fine, Aaron. She’s fine. We’re fine.”

Aaron sighs. He sounds like - like Chrissie, when she would sigh.

Robert flinches and steps forward. “Aaron-” He leans down, and Aaron lifts his face, and then they are kissing. He lets his fingers come to rest on the sides of Aaron’s face and feels Aaron rise to his feet in answer.

 

It’s just - it’s easier, like this. This way Robert knows he isn’t pushing too far; this way Robert knows Aaron isn’t going anywhere. Robert isn’t doing the wrong thing.

And Robert is an omega. He gets off on the yield.

He _likes_ this. This is what he is supposed to like, and Aaron - Aaron is into it, Aaron’s _dick_ is into it, this has to be right.

He slides to his knees and mouths, hot, along the line of Aaron’s dick. He feels the urgency of Aaron's wanting pressed against him and it thrills him, like it always has. How much Aaron gives him, how completely Aaron wants him.

Robert will be honest, in that he has at times not exactly behaved in the most traditional manner.

But he is omega in this. He is most omega here: how much he wants, desperately, overwhelmingly, to be wanted.

 

“Robert,” Aaron says. There is tension in his voice, a cautious curious question in the shape of Robert's name.

“Busy now,” Robert says, looking up through his eyelashes. “You can pull my hair, if you like.”

 

-

 

Aaron fucked Robert through heat in April. It ended acrimoniously, like everything between them, and afterwards Robert was jittery, nervous. He thought it was just coming down, thought it was just nerves.

Then he was paying off a hitman and his hormones were surging and he thought _I didn't take the fucking pill_ , he hadn't because he'd been so busy with Aaron’s hands and his mouth and then the hurt slant of his shoulders, he had put it off and put it off and now-

 

It was probably a false alarm, he told himself. He did stupid things all the time. He didn't need any excuse to be fucking stupid, hadn't Dad and Andy told him that enough times?

Aaron made him do stupid things. It didn't have to be about anything else. There was no point borrowing trouble: Robert made quite enough of his own.

 

-

 

“Did you ever think about kids?” Aaron asks. “I know, Liv’s a bit out of the blue, but is that - in the plan?”

“What?” Robert blinks, adjusting himself so he’s draped across Aaron lengthwise, and he can feel Aaron between his legs, Aaron’s dick soft against his thigh.

Aaron smells like him, and he smells like Aaron. It is soothing for both of them, Robert is pretty sure. He can hear it in the rhythm of Aaron's heartbeat.

“You heard me,” Aaron says, settling one hand on the small of Robert’s back, thumb tracing along the swell of his arse. “Don’t get weird, I don’t mean _now_ , I wouldn't. I just mean-”

“ _Take it slow_ ,” Robert reminds him.

“I’m just curious.” Aaron's fishing, is what he's doing. He's trying to get Robert to tell him that Robert is either happy with Liv or unhappy, and either way Robert doesn't win.

Fucking alphas.

This is why Robert lied to Chrissie all the time. It is how you keep the fucking peace.

Things had always been different with Aaron but Robert supposes he should have expected this to happen, in the end.

 

“You know,” Robert says, idly, “you knocked me up last April.”

Aaron bolts upright. “What?”

“Don’t flap,” Robert says, rolling onto his back, next to Aaron. “It’s not - nothing happened, obviously, I didn’t keep it.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“It wasn’t Chrissie’s,” Robert says. “It doesn’t - she would have known.” Chrissie is alpha enough, sharp enough. She might have snapped its neck. It wouldn’t have been pretty. There would have been blood, everywhere.

Not that there wasn’t blood everywhere, anyway.

Aaron says, “It was mine, though.”

“It was a bundle of cells, Aaron,” Robert says. “Don’t be boring.”

Something ripples through Aaron’s body, a quiet kind of rage. It’s sick but it’s reassuring, to know that Aaron can do this, that Aaron can go hot in the eyes and stiff and furious. For a while, Robert was scared he wouldn’t. “Do you ever get tired of being right all the time?”

“Not really,” Robert says. He’s getting that snap in his voice. He doesn't want to get it around Aaron. Not after all this, not after all the ways he has let Aaron down. He forces it away. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not talking about this, I’m tired.”

Aaron breathes out very hard. “Fine,” he says. This is a lie but Robert is not an alpha; he’s not going to push.

 

Robert’s body always wants to drape itself over Aaron's. Always. It's an omega thing but it's also a Robert thing and the way he wants to hold Aaron is not that omega, he's pretty sure. He has tried not to do it - the important thing is Aaron, the important thing is making sure Aaron knows he's in control.

Now, he is lying next to Aaron in Aaron's tiny bed and they are not touching. Aaron's back is stiff.

Robert could just reach out, and wrap himself around Aaron, and make it better.

He could.

But he won't.

 

-

 

After Robert got shot, things came into perspective, a bit. Chas had PTSD, Diane had cancer, Andy had tried to have Robert killed and had let Aaron take the blame for it.

Chrissie hated him and he was still wearing his collar but it didn't feel right. Maybe that was the suppressants he was back on, dulling the way everything smelled.

Maybe it was that he missed Aaron. He missed Aaron so much.

 

Aaron was an alpha who wasn’t quite; Robert was an omega who wasn’t quite. When Aaron blew up Robert’s marriage he snarled at Chrissie like an alpha and she snarled back, and Robert thought: _oh._ He was floating, he was a mess, because of the lodge, because of the gun, because of so many things. But at the centre of everything was Aaron.

 

Robert still wanted to kneel and he still hated kneeling and he was still tangled up and hurt inside, but he wanted _Aaron,_ more than any of the rest of it, more than anything. He couldn’t quite figure out why - maybe it was just pheromones, maybe it was that Aaron had let him leave that mark on Aaron’s throat; maybe it was that Robert’s body had known Aaron’s, that they had almost-

He had never felt like himself with anyone but Aaron, that was the thing. He had felt like bits of himself with other people, but never wholly himself, never the omega and the alpha and the bitter prodigal son. Aaron saw everything he was, all of it.

That didn’t mean he liked it.

But he saw it, and that was more than anyone else ever had. And so, Robert realized, in his little sister’s box room, he was in love.

 

-

 

“Trouble in paradise?” Charity asks. “Aaron left in a right mood this morning.”

“That’s just his face,” Robert says. “Pint, please.”

“Don’t have to ask for permission?” She raises an eyebrow. “You sure you’re allowed to be out by yourself?”

Robert raises an eyebrow. “Does Cain have to ask permission?”

“He doesn’t have to,” she says, pulling his pint with quick, clever fingers. “He does though.”

Robert winces.

Charity shrugs. “You all right?”

“Since when did you care?”

“I mean, you do live with me,” she says. “If you go mental and I don’t know, get a helicopter to crash into the house or something, it’s me and Noah that’ll get it too.”

“That wasn’t-” Robert shakes his head.

“Alphas get stupid,” Charity says, in a voice that he knows very well, because he has used it. “You and I know that alphas get stupid, because we take advantage of it. Aaron’s not exactly your textbook alpha, but he’s an alpha.”

“Are you saying I did something?”

“I’m saying you’re smart enough to know what you’re doing with an alpha.”

Robert chews his lip. “Maybe I’m not,” he says.

“Are you a quitter, then?” There is a little glimmer in Charity's eyes.

Robert shrugs. “Call me what you like,” he says, and takes his pint, and goes.

 

-

 

Chrissie and Andy are doing this - incredibly stupid thing. Robert is trying not to think about it too hard, because thinking about it leads to stupid decisions and weird spikes of fear about being replaced. If Aaron was someone else, and Robert was someone else, maybe Robert would tell him. But Robert can’t even tell himself so that’s right out; he’ll settle for being as unpleasant as humanly possible in hopes someone will get the fucking hint. Not that Andy has ever taken a fucking hint once in his entire fucking life. Fucking Andy.

 

Andy is objectively not a good alpha. He veers between too controlling and too lenient; he is insecure and soft of hand and easily distracted. When they were kids, they were supposed to teach each other responsibility, but Robert is pretty sure he just taught Andy he was a shit alpha, because that’s all Robert learned from him.

Chrissie was a good alpha. Perhaps, intellectually, Robert might allow that she erred on the side of too traditional, but then again she was lenient enough to give Robert the rope to hang himself. When she was on, though - she was smart enough to push Robert, to challenge him. She made him work for it and he loved that, loved her.

Robert has no idea what they are doing together. But it offends him that they have tried.

He thinks about it too much, wondering what they talk about, what they do; who tops, who would wear the collar. He thinks they probably talk about him, about how he wasn’t good enough. He knows they do.

 

Robert really needs to stop glaring at them in public. Even Charity is starting to get bored of listening to him complain.

It’s just - he’s always been weird about Andy, hasn’t he? Andy’s not even an omega, and he’s better than Robert ever was, and this is -

This is the kind of thinking that gets Robert pacing through old barns having weird and malicious flashbacks, and he’s got more important things to worry about. And he promised Aaron he wouldn’t.

 

-

 

Robert begs tea from Vic at the pub. She sighs at him but does it; she’s his little sister, the only alpha he ever unconditionally loved.

“Have you done something?” she asks. And then, because she loves him, “Has _he_ done something, Rob?”

“It's my fault,” Robert says, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice and failing. “It’s always my fault.”

She twists her mouth at the corner. “I'm not going to argue with you on that one,” she says, reaching out to smooth his hair. He lets her, because she’s his favourite. “Look, just - talk to him, okay? Do that for me.”

“Is that what you do with Adam,” Robert snaps, “talk about your feelings? Because I’m not Adam, Vic, I’m not - I’m not _tame_ like that and he knows it.”

She sighs and holds up both her hands. “Robert,” she says. “You know that’s always been your problem.”

“Yeah, I do,” Robert says, “Dad told me enough times, thanks.”

Vic opens her mouth like she’s going to say something else but then:

 

Aaron walks in. All the light in the room goes to him; all of Robert turns, immediately. The sad thing is that that’s not the omega in Robert; it’s just how Robert is, around Aaron.

Aaron sighs and jerks his head in the direction of the door. It’s not meant to be an order but Robert feels it like one anyway, in his bones.

Robert gets to his feet and goes.

They walk in silence. Robert wants to be touching him, but Robert always wants to be touching him and if he starts he won't stop.

 

Aaron doesn't speak until they are in his bedroom, with the door shut, and Aaron is leaning his back against it. Like Robert would have to get past him to get out, only that's reassuring, sort of.

Robert sits down gingerly on the edge of the bed.

“I don’t want to be like she was with you,” Aaron says. “All traditional, all - telling you what to do all the time, all of that. I’m no good at it, and I don’t think you want it, either.”

Robert dips his head. “Aaron-”

“I’m not like that,” Aaron says. “I’m not- you know I’m not. I don’t want to give you orders and if you want that from someone - it’s not me.”

“That’s not what I want,” Robert says. “You’re an alpha, Aaron. It’s what you want.”

Aaron shivers, full body.

Robert’s stomach twists. This is not what he wanted, this is the opposite of what he was supposed to do.

“It’s not, Robert.” Aaron shakes his head. “You've got to stop thinking for me. You keep thinking ahead and it’s-” he bites his lip. “I don't need you to do that. I don't want you to do that.”

Robert's mouth is very dry. 

Aaron looks down at his hands. They are flat on his thighs, palms-up. “The thing you said before.”

Robert flinches. “I was - I was trying to hurt you.”

“I know,” Aaron says, evenly. “It was fucked up.” He swallows. “It was true though, wasn’t it?”

“I shouldn’t have told you.”

“Are you joking? Of course you should have told me. You should have told me earlier.”

Robert mantles his shoulders. “Well, I didn't.”

“Jesus,” Aaron says. “Can you just talk to me, Robert?”

Robert looks down. It’s automatic: omega submission. “I’m trying,” he says. “I don’t want to say the wrong thing.” He means it to come out petulant but it accidentally sounds honest.

“Robert,” Aaron says.

“You weren’t exactly speaking to me,” Robert says. “And I- I didn't want you to tell me something I didn't want to hear. It’s my body, Aaron.”

Aaron winces. “I know that,” he says. “Of course I- fuck.” He swallows. “But I'm an alpha, Robert. And you said that to hurt me. That you wouldn't want something that was mine, that you would think there was something _wrong._ ” There's something else in there, something Robert didn't mean to bring up, something Robert wouldn't have, if he'd thought at all. 

“I don't want to hurt you,” Robert says, because that is the truth. “I just keep doing it.” 

Aaron closes his eyes. “You said you could be better.”

“Well, I told you, didn't I? That's something.” And then, guiltily: "There wouldn't have been anything wrong, okay? You would have been great. You would have been the best."

“You can't do this,” Aaron says. “Throw secrets at me like that. You can't; you've got to trust me.” He looks at Robert, then, walks the two steps to the bed and stands in front of him, looming over Robert's seated body. “You're always telling me not to bottle it, Rob. You've gotta trust me, too.”

“I don't know how to be your omega,” Robert confesses. It spills out of him bitterly, like bile. “Charity keeps telling me I look traditional but that's not what we are, is it?”

Aaron breathes out, hard. “Fuck,” he says.

“Cause I want you,” Robert says. “And you're my alpha, aren't you? And I only know one way that goes.”

It’s weird, but saying it out loud - it feels like letting something go.

Aaron rubs at the bridge of his nose. “Oh, Robert,” he says.

 

-

 

Aaron has nightmares. He shakes awake and can’t stand to be touched and it’s awful, Robert just sitting there, waiting, but he does it. Of course he does it. He gets tea and blankets and stays a full body’s length away from Aaron, and Aaron swallows and takes water when Robert hands it to him and says _why can't this just be over,_ in this horrible broken voice and Robert just wants to fix it but he can't, he can't do that, so he just does the best he can.

 

When there are nightmares Aaron likes everything on his terms. _Needs_ everything on his terms, probably, but he hasn't said that out loud and Robert won't ever make him, so it is _like_ to inadequately sum up what they are to each other.

Robert just - Robert needs to be there for him. He needs that more than he needs anything else. As long as Aaron needs him, Robert will be there. That’s the important thing. That’s what Robert owes him, now.

 

-

 

Robert took the pregnancy test around the time Victoria and Adam had their stupid elopement. He had taken three, just to be sure. Morning, noon, night. He’d had to hide the wrappers in the scrapyard bins. He couldn’t risk them being at home.

Robert had never wanted children, particularly; he had understood that they would happen, probably, if he lived his life in the style to which he wanted to become accustomed. Andy had got a head start on him - fucking Andy, who had given their dad grandchildren even if they weren’t blood; Andy, who screwed everything up but still couldn't put a foot wrong. But Robert was great at making up lost ground. He'd manage it.

All right, Robert went a bit off the rails. But things were bad at home and Adam was the kind of useless omega that would act as a millstone - he knew it, he’d seen it before - and Vic was blind to it, because she was alpha-dumb like alphas would get, and he couldn’t let her do that to herself. Alphas ruined themselves for omegas all the time, and Adam Barton - soft-eyed kneeling Adam Barton, who followed Vic like a puppy and Aaron when he couldn't follow Vic - was the opposite of worth it.

 

It all ended badly, of course, because that was what things did for Robert, because being fucking _pregnant_ wasn’t enough of a problem, he had to also get chucked in the boot of Cain’s car and then _beaten half to death_ but then Aaron was there, pulling him out.

Robert almost told him, then. Chrissie had kissed Cain, and Robert was pregnant with another alpha’s child. He was losing it and Aaron had saved him.

But Aaron wanted nothing to do with him. That hurt.

Robert was so angry but he was always angry. He hated everything, hated being what he was, hated that he couldn't even get this right. He hated Aaron so much it made him feel sick.

But he was an omega and so he thought about the thing curled up inside him, growing, and despite everything he loved it.

He pressed his hands to the bruise on his face and he thought, _oh no._

Robert had always hated those words.

 

-

 

“Okay,” Aaron says. “I’m not going to be - an alpha for you, like that. I don’t want it and you don’t want it.”

Robert opens his mouth and then shuts it.

Aaron tilts his head to the side and waits.

“I-” Robert says. It’s strange, because it’s not like he’s not _used_ to asserting himself with Aaron. It’s just - “I wanted to be careful,” he says. “I wanted to get this right.” _I love you. I want to be right for you. I want to be a good omega, for once, because that's what you deserve, that's what I could never do._

Aaron’s eyes go soft. He takes a step forward and settles a hand on the curve of Robert’s cheek; Robert flinches, and Aaron lets go. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Robert says, because it’s Aaron, because he’s wanted this to work every time he’s tried to do it and every time he’s failed and maybe it’s time to face up to why. “It’s - you’re right. It makes me unhappy.”

“But you want some of it,” Aaron says. “You want - the kneeling and that.”

“Not all the time,” Robert says. It’s hard to say, it’s hard to get out words that aren’t - what he knows he should be, what he knows he should say. “But it’s what I am.”

“I can do it for you,” Aaron says. “Not all the time, not - not when we’re out. But sometimes, like this, if you want it. I can be an alpha for you.”

“Okay,” Robert says. Compromise isn’t something he’s used to. But he could, for Aaron - for Aaron, he could give it a try.

 

-

 

He had thought about it, in a quiet, weak, omegan moment. His belly had begun to swell. It wasn't obvious; it was just - Chrissie commenting, maybe he ought not to have bacon for breakfast for the next little while. She couldn't yet smell it, but she would.

He lay in bed with Chrissie's hair falling onto his shoulder and the soft smell of her in his nose. He thought about it; about how his body would change, distort. He would become heavy and soft. He would feel it kick inside him. He would love it fiercely, because that was what omegas did; even if they had never wanted this, even if wasn't what they would ever want in their right minds.

He hated it already, but he loved it, too.

He thought: it would have Aaron's eyes. It would have Aaron's hair. It would have Robert's smile.

It would look like Aaron, who wouldn't even meet his eyes, but had let Robert leave a mark at his throat; Aaron who had saved him from Cain, had put his hands on Robert and yanked him free.

He knew it was impractical, unlikely. Part of him wondered if Aaron had smelt it and had known. If Aaron had wanted to protect the thing that they had both made that was growing inside of him.

He wanted that, too. God, he wanted it.

 

That was the thing about omegas, isn’t it? Even when you knew it wasn’t what you wanted you couldn’t let go. Getting rid -

God. A mess.

 

Robert had this problem: he’d never been able to let go of anything ever in his life. How could he have thought it would be different like this? He felt himself absolutely lose it, slipping away. He looked at himself as if from a great height, watched the words fall out of his mouth, watched himself become something ugly and terrifying.

And then he got shot.

It was, in many ways, a relief.

 

Later, the hospital staff would tell him that they had had to do something with his hormone levels. They had been unbalanced, wrong.

They put him on pills. They told him, _you were stupid to do this alone._ They told him, _the guilt must have eaten you up._

Robert nodded. It wouldn’t do anyone any good if he said, _it would have been far worse if I asked for help._

The thought of that was terrifying. Not new, but this time it stuck.

 

-

 

Things are better now. They feel better. Robert still finds himself slipping, still finds himself wanting to lean against Aaron’s hand and bare his throat. But Aaron needs him, too, and he needs Aaron, and he’s always hated losing himself.

 

Liv says, “You’re a bit of a rubbish omega, aren’t you?” She says it in the detached way of teenagers, who lob hurtful things easily, breathlessly. Robert should know; he was a very hurtful teenager.

“Yeah,” he says. “Not great at it.”

She tilts her head to one side, like a bird. “Gabby is, too,” she says. Like a peace offering - probably induced by a stern word or several from Aaron, in full parenting flight. “Always bossing me around and that. She’s all right.”

Robert is being offered reconciliation in the form of identification with a fourteen year old vicar’s daughter, best known for getting drunk on the village green last week and throwing up all over Lawrence when he came to take her home. “All right then,” he says.

 

Aaron smiles at him when he comes round with the drinks, and leans into the slope of Robert’s arm when he stretches it out along the back of Aaron’s chair. Like he doesn't mind if Robert wants to try and look after him. Like he thinks Robert might do it right.

 

Aaron even smiles about Robert working at Home Farm, in a wry way but in a kind way.

This is partially because he does not know about the thing with Lawrence and the heart attack, but Aaron has never really understood the kind of violence with which omegas operate. It’s funny, because Aaron isn’t exactly a pacifist himself, but Robert likes this about him, that he is kind.

Chrissie was sharp and ruthless and Robert loved her, but she was rarely kind.

Aaron doesn’t really _get_ why Robert needs Home Farm, but he gets that Robert does need it.

“I could have asked permission,” Robert says. “Should I-” Chrissie would have wanted him to ask.

“No,” Aaron says firmly. “You would hate that. I would hate that.”

Robert shrugs. “I guess.” He almost misses it. He liked having a framework, rules. Knowing what not to say. It's harder when Aaron says, _I want to know everything,_ and means it.

But more than that, Robert needs to be in charge of something. When he was running the business his head was clear, and he was strong and powerful; there he didn't have to worry about all the things he was certainly doing wrong. It's hard to be without it. It's worth clawing it back.

 

-

 

“You need it?” Aaron asks.

Robert swallows. “Yeah.”

Aaron takes a step forward. His shoulders straighten and something settles on him, like a weight, like a mantle. Alpha voice. It used to make Robert feel sick and tired and scared, resigned; now it makes him feel, like, loved. Because Aaron wants him enough to do this for him. “Okay.”

Robert sinks to his knees.

 

-

 

When Robert showed up at the lodge he thought, maybe everything would be all right. Aaron had kissed him; Aaron had wanted them back on. Maybe, in retrospect, there had been something a bit off about it, but Robert had felt omega brain start to kick in and he wasn’t thinking particularly clearly. He was thinking about Aaron, who had kissed him against the door of the portacabin (in retrospect: fucking hormones) and sucked his dick and put his fingers in Robert in a way that had felt just - immensely pleasant, so fucking good. Robert didn't really like to get fucked, still, but he was finding that he wanted it more, now.

Maybe they would have the baby, he thought. Maybe he would tell Aaron about the baby. Maybe Aaron would stay with him, maybe this would be the push Aaron needed to just - get in line, do the right thing, for once. Stop telling people who didn’t need to know. Get his priorities in order.

“Go get the beers, then,” Aaron said. Not really alpha-voice, but something flirting with it, and that was good, especially for Robert right now, to know that the father of his child could do that, could take charge if he needed to.

Robert let his fingers press against the warm side of Aaron’s neck, and thought about how Aaron would look, with his arms round a little brown-haired baby, blinking with Robert’s eyes.

He wandered round the lodge, looking at all the rooms - bedroom, toilet, kitchenette - thinking about how Aaron would get soft for the baby - for Robert’s baby.

Aaron would love it. He would have to. He would soften his voice and his hands would be gentle and all of him would care about it. He wouldn’t be able to walk away; he couldn’t. Aaron wasn’t a good alpha but he was an alpha. It was just biology.

Robert thought: Aaron and Chrissie had the same colouring. It could work. He could make it work. He hadn’t gotten to where he was being _stupid_. Yes, all right - he would have to sneak the baby out at weekends, it would be _effort_ , but -

Aaron wouldn’t mind. Robert would talk him into it. Aaron would understand that they were doing it for the baby. Aaron would have to get it. Aaron was smart.

He managed to sustain the fantasy for all of three minutes, while talking to Aaron, listening to Aaron, getting bored with Aaron and trying to kiss him, and then-

Well.

And then Aaron pushed him off - yelling something about Paddy? What? It took him a second to remember. He had just - he had gotten confused.

Paddy had said something about Robert never seeing Aaron again and he couldn’t handle that, how could he? He wasn’t a very good omega but that was _the_ omega thing.

It wasn’t like he’d _killed_ Paddy or anything. He’d just - threatened him a bit, meant to scare him. You could get out of that shit in a court of law; it happened all the time. Especially if Robert submitted to a blood test, which would prove that he’d been pregnant all the time, foetal cells in his bloodstream, messing with his brainstem. Everyone knew that omegas were a hormonal mess for all nine months of gestation.

Not that Robert was a hormonal mess. Robert was very clear-headed, mostly.

But then Aaron said Katie’s name, and Robert’s instincts went into overdrive.

And _then_ he found the fucking phone.

 

Clear-headed. Mostly.

Tying Aaron to a radiator was maybe not the _most_ calm thing he’d ever done, but he just needed a minute, all right? It was surprisingly loud in the lodge - the beat of Aaron’s heart that Robert could hear over and over, because of the omega thing, and because of the pregnancy thing, probably; and also the harsh panting of Robert’s own breath.

He was partly glad that Aaron was unconscious. Aaron wasn’t a loud person, by nature, but he took up a lot of space in Robert’s head, in rooms when Robert was also in them. Right now he was very yelly, and also he had cried a lot, and Robert mostly could handle both those things, the yelling and the crying, because they just meant that Aaron was in touch with his emotions, and if Aaron was in touch with his emotions then Robert could probably _use_ those emotions.

But right now, Robert was handling a lot of feelings. Like, a lot.

He had just wanted to tell Aaron about their fucking baby, okay? And Robert’s _plan for their future_ , and how everything was going to be _fine_ -

He dug his nails into his palms, furious, because instead of being _grateful_ Aaron had been trying to get him sent down. Aaron had been trying to get him _sent to prison._ Robert would do so fucking badly in prison - had Aaron looked at Robert? God, Robert wouldn’t last five minutes in general population.

And they would take the baby. Though - if Chrissie found out Robert’s baby was not his and was in fact Aaron’s, it would probably be safer for Robert to be in custody.

But they _could not_ take Robert’s baby. He would hurt anyone who tried. Even Chrissie.

 

Anyway. Now he had a gun, and so everything was going to be fine. Absolutely fine.

Super fucking fine.

 

Except that Aaron was crying, and Robert was just running his mouth, just saying everything he could think of, everything that was true - _you ruined everything -_ and it might be time to admit that Robert had lost the plot.

Not a lot. Not entirely.

But - the plot was not there.

He didn’t understand why Aaron couldn’t just keep his fucking mouth shut, instead of telling Robert he _hated him_ , instead of telling Robert he was a  _psychopath_ , instead of - any of this.

Maybe Robert could do this on his own. Chrissie would be a good parent. Lachlan wasn’t- okay. Robert would be all right on his own. Robert could make his kid good. Aaron was good, and Robert was very, very smart, and together they would make someone nice.

Maybe Robert would do the smart thing, and get rid of it. That would make sense. He wasn’t that attached to it - it was fine, even if he was. Aaron wasn’t that fucking exciting as a person; it was just that Robert had gone and fallen in love with him.

 

And then Robert was shaking, and he was pointing the fucking _gun_ and his body had gone mental, completely haywire; he was getting weird shocks jolting through the fucking soles of his feet.

He knew why. It was because he was pointing the gun at _Aaron_ , who was an _alpha_ who had _gotten Robert pregnant_ and okay, whatever, Robert was in love with him, fuck, Robert was stupidly head over heels ruin the world in love with him, but it was fine, it had to be fine, it had to. (It was the opposite of fine. It was a complete disaster.)

But this was also Aaron who had threatened Robert, and wanted to send him somewhere they would take his _baby_ and-

“Dammit, I love you-”

 

And then Paddy walked in and Robert fired the gun, and that was the point at which he started shaking and realized he had lost all control, and also that he was bleeding.

 

-

 

“It was a miscarriage,” Robert says, quietly.  “I couldn't do anything right, could I? I'm a rubbish omega, always have been." His heart is hammering very loudly, thumping through his ears.  "It’s a nightmare, the hormones are - I’m sorry that I pulled a fucking gun, Aaron. I was out of my mind. It’s no excuse, and I suppose it says a lot that nobody noticed anything out of the ordinary. But I was - I was gone.” He thinks he is bracing himself. His shoulders are tense. His whole body feels strung out, pulled taut. 

“You did it alone?” Aaron is looking at him and this time, now, there’s something soft and worried in his eyes, and Robert knows what it is, because it’s what Aaron didn’t want to see when Robert looked at him; it’s pity.

He says, “Stop, Aaron. Stop that right now.” His skin is itching. He hates this. He wants out, he wants to run. He can’t breathe.

“Robert,” Aaron says, and his voice is steady, calm. He reaches out, fingers hovering over Robert’s skin, not touching. “Robert, I’m right here.”

“I would have done it anyway, Aaron.” He has to say it; he spent so long lying to Aaron. “If I could have. I wouldn’t have kept it. There’s no way I would have kept it. Not because of you - never because of you. Because of me.”

“I know,” Aaron says, and his mouth twists down at the corners. “I know who you are, Robert."

Robert sighs and turns his face to Aaron. “I missed you so much,” he says. “So much, Aaron.”

Aaron kisses his forehead, then, and wraps his arms around Robert, and Robert puts his head against Aaron’s shoulder. “I’m here,” Aaron says.”You know that, yeah? You’ve been here for me, but I’m here for you.”

Robert has always hated this about himself; how he likes to be held. He closes his eyes and breathes in the smell of Aaron’s jumper, Aaron’s aftershave, Aaron’s alpha-smell that Robert gets on him in the mornings and holds very close to his chest.

“I used to hate this too,” Aaron says, kindly. “It used to make me so angry.”

“What happened?”

Aaron twists his mouth down at the corners. “I don’t know,” he says. “I just woke up one morning and didn’t, anymore.”

 

-

 

It was what Robert had wanted more than anything, in the lodge - for someone to just catch him and hold him. But he’d tied Aaron to the fucking radiator and left him there overnight, and then he’d shot Paddy, so he was shit out of luck there, as far as he could see.

He was shaking. It was the adrenaline, from the gun, kicking through him like an electric shock. He felt like all of him was out of control. He couldn’t even stay still. His fucking teeth clicked together.

“Robert,” Aaron said. “You're not going to let him die.” That was alpha voice. Robert could hear it; Robert could feel it. He had left his teeth marks in Aaron’s skin and as a result Aaron’s voice was reverberating through him.

Robert was fucking floating, but Aaron’s voice - it got him. The fact that it was doing that made him furious.

He almost shot Paddy but it wasn’t what he wanted, either, not really.

Instead he went out to Paddy’s car and got Paddy’s vet kit from the boot, and while he was there something hit him, like a punch to the gut, and he slid down the side of the car shaking. His belly hurt, stabbing and screaming. He put his hand to where it hurt and it came away faintly red but he thought - he thought, _that was Aaron’s, that was Paddy’s,_ he was sure it had been there before.

He shook for a moment more and then he pulled himself together and went inside, where Aaron was still spitting and furious and tied to the fucking radiator, and Paddy Kirk was bloody, smelling so strongly of copper Robert could taste it in his mouth.

 

Robert was an omega; he was good at following instructions. Paddy kept his voice even, offered Robert easy instructions, clear. He was a beta, thank god. Robert could not have borne another alpha telling him anything.

He could barely handle Aaron, right there, hating him. God, Aaron. Aaron who Robert loved so much he felt ill, Aaron who made Robert’s entire body shake.

He staggered and had to catch himself on the arm of the sofa, where yesterday Aaron had let Robert kiss him for a moment before throwing him off.

“Robert,” Paddy said, low and urgent. “ _Robert._ I need you to take me into the bedroom.”

Aaron said, “Paddy!”

“Shut up, Aaron,” Paddy said. He caught Robert’s arm, fleshy fingers digging in tight. “Robert, now.”

 

Paddy sat down on the edge of the bed and Robert went in with the needle and sutures, but Paddy stopped him. “How long?”

“What?”

“You’re having convulsions,” Paddy said. “How long have they been going on?”

“I-” Robert bit his lip. “An hour?” Since he’d arrived. Since Aaron had told him he hated him.

Paddy said, “How long have you been pregnant?”

Robert rocked back onto his heels. It wasn’t worth denying; he braced himself through another round of bitter stabbing pain in the gut.

“You’re bleeding,” Paddy said.

“Since April,” Robert said, closing his eyes. “I went into heat in April.”

Paddy hissed out a breath through his teeth. “It’s Aaron’s,” he said, like a revelation. “It -”

“It _was_ Aaron’s,” Robert said. The reality of it hit him like a hammer. He slid to the floor and wrapped his arms around his knees. He thought he might be crying. “I’m losing it.”

“Yeah,” Paddy said. “I’m so sorry, Robert. You must have been so scared.” He sounded so kind. It was unfair, Robert thought; Robert had put him in the grain pit and almost shot him and here was Paddy Kirk, reaching out and putting his hand on Robert’s shoulder and here was Robert, crying and bleeding and leaning into it. Nobody should be kind to him, Robert thought. Not Robert, who had a gun, and all this blood on his hands.

“You can’t tell him,” Robert said. “Please. I’ll - if you do, I’ll-” He didn’t know what he had left to threaten. He had already played every card he had and the shaking was getting worse and he could feel himself bleeding, now, could feel the stickiness spreading down through his trousers and along his thighs.

“I won’t,” Paddy said, in a tone of voice better suited, Robert thought, for a nervous horse; it worked all the same. “Come here, all right?”

He got Robert up onto the bed and helped him get his trousers off and went to the bathroom and got him a stack of towels, keeping up a light patter all the way, as though if he filled the silence with inane observations about the soap in the shower and the little bottles in the bathroom cabinet they might both forget that Aaron was tied to the radiator, and Paddy had been shot, and Robert was lying on the bed, perpetrator of all those things, having a _goddamn miscarriage._

“Do you want me to stay?” Paddy asked, handing Robert a bottle of water he’d found somewhere. It was the bottle of water Robert had offered Aaron.

He stifled a laugh and sipped from it. It was lukewarm; he could stomach only two sips before he had to put it down. “You can’t be serious.”

Paddy shrugged. “I didn’t think you wanted me to call you an ambulance, but I can.”

The fear of it was immediate, overwhelming. He was married; they would call his alpha. She would not take this well. _He_ wasn't taking this well. “No,” he said. “Absolutely not. I’ll be fine.”

“You can manage this,” Paddy said.

“Not that you’d care if I didn’t,” Robert said.

Paddy made a disapproving noise and pressed Robert’s phone into his palm. “Call for help if the bleeding gets worse,” he said.

“I can google my own emergency information,” Robert said, and then gritted his teeth through a particularly bad cramp. Something rushed out of him, liquid and disgusting. “Please just go.”

Paddy looked at him. “Are you sure?”

Robert closed his eyes. “You don’t want him to know about this any more than I do.”

He heard the sound of Paddy’s footsteps. He could have looked away, but he didn’t. Part of him would always regret not watching Aaron go.

 

Robert spent the next three hours lying on a bed in a lodge where he had tied up and almost killed his boyfriend having a fucking _miscarriage,_ which was fucking disgusting, in case you were trying not to think about it. Robert would really have preferred to never find this out, but he supposed Aaron would have preferred not to be tied to a radiator, and Paddy would have preferred to not have been shot. So it was sort of a mutually shitty day.

Robert was a bad enough person to find that reassuring as he lay there, bleeding.

He wanted Aaron so badly he sobbed with it, sobbed into the pillow and said Aaron’s name over and over. He wanted Aaron and the tiny brown haired baby and he was _in love_ but now everything was ruined and so was he.

 

When he got home, Chrissie ran her thumbs over his collar and kissed him and said he smelled tired. He shook with gratitude; he loved her, and she loved him, and she would look after him, and everything would be all right. His omega self was so tired, and had been through so much; he leaned into her, felt her fingers in his hair, tangled his hands in her shirt and held on.

This was for the best, he told himself. Now she would have no reason to rip out his throat with her teeth.

Obviously, this was when his fucking boyfriend - probably ex boyfriend, now; this seemed like a plausible enough reason to call it a breakup - blew their entire goddamn affair, and everything went entirely fucking nuclear.

 

It was a bad day.

 

-

 

They are both naked. Aaron is getting better at that, now. There is something about the alpha high still lingering - in the way he holds himself, in the smooth confidence he wears. Robert likes it, wants it. Not just for himself, but not just for Aaron, either.

“I wouldn't have got rid,” Robert says. “I lied to you when I said I would.”

Aaron sits and waits. Liv's made him a very good listener. Robert is jealous of all the ways in which Liv has made Aaron better, but he loves Aaron, and he is both glad and proud to see it.

“You can't, really,” Robert says. “When you're an omega. There's a lot of hormones. You'd have to sign something in advance. You can't want it yourself, not when it’s in you. Otherwise nobody would come to term.”

Aaron’s eyes are very steady. Robert also forgets how much therapy Aaron has been through; the answer is a lot. Sometimes Robert thinks he ought to look into it, but then he hears Dad’s voice telling him to stop whinging and get his act together, and it passes.

“Chrissie would have known. It was - it was cut close that she hadn't noticed yet, anyway.”

“I didn't notice.”

“You didn't know what to look for.” Robert shrugs. “And you noticed. You were back with me even though it was stupid.”

“Newsflash, Rob, you don't need to be knocked up for me to make stupid decisions about you.” There’s a tiny smile tugging at the edge of his mouth but it’s not funny; both of them know it.

“You fucked me in the portacabin,” Robert says. “Like you knew. That's what it felt like.”

Aaron chews his lower lip. “It did feel intense,” he says, thoughtfully. “Just thought it had been a while.”

Robert shrugs. “My point is, I'd have kept it, and she'd have kicked me out. And I would have gone to you.”

“What makes you think I'd have had you?”

“You're an alpha,” Robert says. “And I'm an omega, and I was carrying your child.”

Aaron’s mouth twists. “Okay.”

Robert says, “I would have blown everything up. Even if you didn't.”

There is a water stain on the corner of the ceiling. He tips his head back and finds the shape of a tiger in it.

"I ruin everything," he says. His mouth feels numb. "I can't get anything right. Sometimes I think I don't know how." He closes his eyes and opens them again, outlining the tiger's four paws, head, tail.  "I loved it, you know. I didn't mean to. But I did. And then I killed it, because that's what I do. I swear I'm trying to be better. I swear."

Aaron doesn't say anything. That's good: Robert doesn't think he could handle pity from Aaron, not now. Aaron just breathes, in and out and in again; not quite steady, but not on the edge of flight, either.  Robert listens to the sound of it, lets it settle into the rhythm of his heart. 

“It scares me so much,” Robert says. He feels as though they are in the confessional booths and he is breathing in the smell of sandalwood and old Bibles. “How much I love you.”

Aaron traces his fingertips along Robert's shoulder, warm and soft and so kind Robert could cry from it. He's drawing little patterns, loops and spirals. It's something Robert does when he's thinking. 

“I know,” he says, finally, pressing a kiss to Robert’s temple. “It scares me, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> title from [richard siken](http://thediagram.com/15_1/siken.html).


End file.
